Improvement in mounting photographs



A. C. PLATT.

Improvement in Mountihg Photographs.

Patented June H, 1872.

Inventor m PHEII'U-U HOGkAP/i/C ca. Mk losxMA/i's moansm' STATES? nnrnmi orrnarr, or SANDUSKY, onro.

IMPROVEMENTVIN MOUNTING'PHOTOGRAPHS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 127,920, dated June 11, 1872 7 To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALFRED O. vPLATT, of Sandusky, in the county of Erie and in the State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Photographs; and do hereby decare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawing and to the letters of reference marked thereo making a part of this specification.

Improvements have been made in photographs until they have become in delicacy of shading, depth and richness of tone, and general beauty of appearance, superior to any other light-and-shade picture; but heretofore there has existed a difficulty in finishing them, which has impaired their value and prevented their general distribution by rendering their transportation dificult and expensive, as they cannot be rolled or folded for sending by mail.

It is impracticable to print photographs upon plate-paper or board like engravings or lithographs, but they have first to be printed upon thin photographic paper and then mounted or pasted upon heavier paper or board. This pasting expands the print, and when laid upon the mount and dried it shrinks and produces a disagreeable curling up of the mount. This curling is usually partly taken out by rolling under steel rollers, but this gives a glassy, hard, disagreeable surface to the picture. This mount is required to be very heavy and expensive, or the print in drying will wrinkle or produce what is commonly called.

puckering. This cannot be taken out by rollin g, for when so wrinkled the mount will overlap or fold over and be broken down by the roller. The necessity'of using these heavy mounts prevents photographs from being rolled up for transportation, and thereby renders it impossible to send the larger sizes by mail, so convenient and inexpensive a method of sending engravings, lithographs, &c. When photographs larger than the album size are sent by mail it is necessary to bind them bev tween heavy boards to prevent their getting broken, rendering them cumbersome and the postage expensive. The heavy curledmount also renders it exceedingv difficult to frame large photographs nicely. The mount will curl or spring back from the glass, and, notwithstanding the thick boards required and strong tacked.

nailing of the backing there is usually in some part or parts of the picture a disagreeable wrinkling or curving back of the print from the glass. The heavy mount necessaryfor photographs also prevents their use forthe illustration of books. It is not practicable to bind these heavy boards in with book paper, and even if they were so bound the curling spoken of would open the leaves at their edges and injure the looks of the book. These heavy mounts also require heavy clumsy albums of great thickness to hold a few prints, fiftyof them occupying as'much space as would contain two hundred finished by my process. The body of this heavy mount is frequently composed of some dark coarse lumpy material, and when rolled these lumps press through the surface and into the print, giving a dingy spotted appearance to the whites of the picture, spoiling the beauty of the background of vignettes and lowering the brilliancy of the high lights. All these inconveniences and difficulties are entirely obviated and the mounting of photographs greatly cheapened by my process and apparatus, so that photographs finished by the same may be handled, framed, mailed, bound in books, and used in all respects like engravings.

In order to enable others skilled in the art to which my invention appertains to make and use the same, I will now proceed to describe the construction of the apparatus and the mode in which the same is used, referring to the annexed drawing, which represents a 1ongitudinal vertical section of my apparatus.

On a frame, A, of the size or larger than the mounts to be used, cloth B is pasted or The cheapest bleached cotton will answer. When ready to mount the picture the cloth upon the frame is wetted and laid over a board, 0, previously fitted within the frame. The mount D is then made wet, so as to swell correspondingly with the print when pasted. The wet mount is'then pasted upon the back and laid upon the cloth, and the print E is immediately pasted and laid in its place upon the mount, and the whole-print and mount-a-re rubbed down together. The frame is then removed from the backboard until the picture is dry. The wet cloth being stage for.the wetting will make it so.

Theintense tautness to which a print is brought in this manner seems to bring it to the surface and gives it an evenness and nicety of appearance charming to the photographs without the disagreeable hard gloss which rolled prints have. Thick book paper will do for the mount, or any paper strong enough to be handled while moist. The cloth should be pasted or tacked to the frame only on the outer edges. When the picture is dry the mount may be peeled from the cloth. or the mount and cloth may be cut through with a knife by a straight-edge laid upon the frame and both removed together. In either case the print will retain the evenness and flatness given to it by drying in.

off, may be rolled up, bound in books, or handled in any manner like an engraving. If the mounted print is to be removed from the cloth,

paper should be used somewhat tougher than book paper. For large pictures it is best to leave the mount and cloth together, as the cloth is pliable, yet gives strength and prevents the tearing of the paper. By this meth- 0d the expense is also greatly reduced.

For the benefit of photographers Iwill briefly state the method I have adopted for working the process; I have a number of cheap frames made for the different-sized prints above 10 by 12. Upon these, cloth is hastily pasted by running paste around the edges of the frame and then laying it upon the cloth lying upon a table and bringing the edges of the cloth up against the paste when it is set away to dry. Tautness of the cloth is not necessary at this The mounts are passed through water and laid one upon another. Thus, by not being saturated, the surface water is absorbed. The prints are also dipped in water and laid, one upon another, face down. In this way they lie all straight and nice for pasting, and do not curl under when the paste is applied to the back, as they do when dry. The cloth is then wet, and while one person pastes the mount another pastes the print, when both are laid in their placesand rubbed down together by passing a soft moist sponge overthem. Both mount and print being wet the sponge is passed once over both, and any paste that may pass out from under the edges of the print is wiped nicely away. If any water-varnish, such as a solution of gelatine or gum-arabic is to be used, it should be now applied. By a thin solution of either more brilliancy is given to the print. If on albumen, I brush the solution over both mount and print. One board fitted within a frame of each size is suflicient for all of that size. It remains upon the table, and as one frame is used and removed another is laid over it.

Sizessmaller than those above mentioned are usually taken off from the cloth, and for these sizes. cloth may be drawn over a stretcher of any suitable size to hold a number of prints. These stretchers or frames may be provided with keys at the corners, so that if by continual use the cloth becomes slack it can be'drawn taut again. In this way the same cloth can be used repeatedly. The mounts and prints are pasted upon the cloth after wetting in the same manner as the large ones and are peeled off when dry. One stretcher answers for many prints of the card size.

Photographs finished in this way upon thin paper with a large margin, and then detached from the cloth, can be readily and neatlybound in books.

Other surfaces than cloth might be used, but a textile fablic is found best, as in wetting it tautens and draws in opposition to the contraction of the paper, and being open or porous it readily admits of the separation of the mount from it, which smooth close surfaces would not do.

Small prints may be mounted without the cloth upon tough paper previously wetted, and the edges clamped tightly in a frame while drying, but the cloth is the more expeditious way, and cheaper and thinner paper can be used with it.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. Wetting the photographic mount so as to expand correspondingly with the print, and after the print is mounted upon it holding it in a fixed or unyielding position while drying, substantially in the manner and for the purposes herein set forth.

2. The application of a photographic mount to and drying the same upon a cloth or other equivalent surfacefrom which it may be detached, substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth.

3. In combination with the frame A and cloth surface or support B, I claim the back board 0, arranged and used substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing I have hereunto set my hand this 31st day of January, 1871.

ALFRED (J. PLATTV Witnesses:

E. M. OoLvER, FRED SCHAEFLER. 

